AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review: Zen 5 impresses, but 7800X3D still reigns for gaming
Gaming benchmarks: Far Cry 6, Cyberpunk 2077, Crysis 3 Remastered.
We've run our CPU benchmarks at 1080p, 1440p and 4K. We'd normally expect differences in CPU performance to be most evident at lower resolutions and steadily less relevant as resolution (and therefore GPU load) increases, but some of our titles showed heavily CPU-bound results even at 4K. Part of this is down to the use of DLSS in supported titles, which uses lower internal resolutions to unlock higher performance - while easing GPU bottlenecking.
We may add 720p results to further isolate CPU performance in future editions, though realistically this isn't used as an output resolution for modern PC gaming and therefore has more limited real-world value.
As before, you get a different experience depending on your browser. Mobile-class browsers will see table summaries of the most critical results for each game, while desktop-grade browsers will get a more powerful bar graph - where you can mouse over to reveal more data and click to switch between absolute and percentage values. You can also see our scenes play out in real time by clicking the play button on the YouTube embeds, and you can click the tick boxes on the right to add or remove different CPU and resolution combinations.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 6: Ultra, TAA
Far Cry 6 is one of those games that's fairly modern but still absolutely lives or dies by single-core performance (and memory bandwidth!). All of our CPUs deliver fairly good frame-rates here, even with RT effects enabled, but the single-core gains in Zen 5 absolutely set them apart.
To wit, there's a 16 percent lead for the 9600X over the 7600X and a 14 percent delta for the 9700X over the 7700X. That's basically the exact geomean AMD quoted for the IPC improvement here, and an impressive step up that puts the AMD chips on even footing with the powerful 14600K and 14700K. Surprising no one, the 7800X3D remains the fastest finisher in our tests, with an 11 percent lead over the 9700X.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, RT Ultra, DLSS Performance
This Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark is one we're quite proud of: a proper bespoke loop through one of the most demanding areas of the game, a spot we identified in some of our earliest testing and always wanted a more consistent rendition of. Now we have it, and the results include some surprises.
In short, the 9600X shows a big lead over the 7600X - 17 percent - but the 9600X, 5800X3D (!), 7700X and 9700X are all in very similar territory. Intel fares a bit better, with the 14700K being eight percent faster than the 9700X, but it's the 7800X3D that holds around a 12.5 percentage point lead over the 9700X.
Another surprise is the 9600X outperforming the 9700X here. Cyberpunk's 2.0 update did add an AMD SMT option that might clear this up and allow the 9700X to perform a bit better, but repeated testing with this option set to 'on' and 'off' rather than the 'auto' we used elsewhere didn't reveal any noticeable performance changes - perhaps one to take a closer look at in the future.
Crysis 3 Remastered
Crysis 3 Remastered: DX11, Very High, DLSS Performance
We conclude with the return of the king, Crysis 3 Remastered. This is another sequence we've used for years for its CPU challenge, and with DLSS set to performance mode it still remains a viable benchmark.
The 9600X and 9700X each improve by a good degree - around 10 percent for the former and eight percent for the latter over their predecessor - but it's actually the Core i7 14700K that turns in the highest result, with the 7800X3D not being able to put its extra-large L3 cache to good use. The 5800X3D similarly looks as old as it actually is for once, but even then a showing north of 200fps isn't anything to complain about.
That's all the testing for now, and we will be adding more game benchmarks in the future - in fact, a few have already been completed but came slightly too late to include here. For now, we've got something to say about the value proposition of Ryzen 9000 and our overall impressions in the conclusion, so turn that page.